After the six hour drive back to Geneva David pulled into the parking lot behind the Geneva’s Central Police station, got out of the car and stretched. The late afternoon sun cast shadows over the Jura Mountains leaving lacey grey patterns on the asphalt.
Turning as Miriam left the car he said, “Thanks for helping with the driving, Miriam. Say, I didn’t know you used to drive Formula cars on the Nürburgring.”
“Too fast for you, my friend? I didn’t see you closing your eyes or any white knuckles when you grabbed the chicken bar.”
“No really, I am quite impressed with your driving skills.”
As she turned to walk into the back door of the police station, Miriam replied over her shoulder, “Thanks, I think.”
Servette looked up from the folder he was reading and waved the duo to the two chairs in front of his desk that, as usual, was hidden under the piles of paper work.
“Long drive? Sure it was,” Piet greeted them. “I’ve done it a few times in my lifetime, believe me. Would either of you like a Coke or a bottle of water?
Both agents shook their heads and watched as the chief rummaged in a desk drawer and pulled out a battered briar pipe and began filling it with tobacco. Flicking a silver lighter, he pulled on the pipe over and over until the office was half filled with a grey noxious smoke.
Waving his hand through the smoke, Servette laughed and said, “Sorry about that. It’s my one sin and you can blame your boss for it. I had given up the smoking habit years ago until Levi and I spent a weekend together last year at an international forensics conference on Malta. Joining his pipe smoking was the only way I could counteract that noxious Turkish he smokes.”
The air in the office was almost breathable again when Servette flicked his lighter again to re-light his dead tobacco.
“So what did you find out in Munich?”
After sharing with Servette their frustration and uncertainty about Bruno and his Munich Police Department, they told about their visit to the Bavarian National Library and how helpful Frau Kratz was in putting some history behind the Wittlesbach Emerald and Han’s family connection to it.
“We still don’t know really why he is after the emerald, or why he is killing people in Europe, but things are slowly coming into perspective,” Miriam said as she vigorously waved more pipe smoke away. “Where do you buy that vile pipe tobacco, Piet? Surely you can find some that doesn’t smell like burning garbage.”
“My dear Miriam, what you probably don’t know is that I am, more or less, a Catholic. That is I do go to mass on Easter and Christmas. However I am much more liberal than much of the doctrines rained down on us from Rome, and it gives me great pleasure to puff on my pipe in which is burning a tobacco called Three Nuns. In my own way it’s a small poke in the eye of the church.”
Miriam and David laughed. Survette turned, and put the still smoking pipe down behind him on the window ledge.
“Sorry about that. Besides poking fun at the church, it really gives me lots of uninterrupted time in my office so I can organize my files. When I stoke up my pipe I leave the door open and no one, it seems, wants to come in and bother me. Enough of this, we need to talk about the auction. The Emerald in question will indeed be in the auction tomorrow at the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues on the other side of the lake. I think I told you that Josef made contact with an interesting man from Hong Kong who will also be bidding on that stone. Seems that a Triad he works for wants it for some reason, just why, we don’t know. I think it’s likely, after talking this morning to Levi, that you both should be at the auction, just in case your killer happens to show up. We have no definite reasons to believe that he will, just that it’s a possibility. All you have to do is register with the Christie security at the hotel and keep your eyes open. I have made the necessary connection for you there both with Jacob Metz the manager of the auction house and he with their security staff so you will be able to go armed without any trouble. He’s not too pleased that outsiders will be there armed, but he agreed, as a favor to me. Also, Josef has asked that you not acknowledge him or his friend from Hong Kong, just so you won’t spook him. I think after your day on the road you’ll probably want some rest before the auction tomorrow. Keep in touch and let me know what is going on as soon as you can after the auction.
“Piet, we really don’t know what this killer looks like. All we have is that computer enhanced photo that was taken in 1960. Even if he is this millionaire from Buenos Aires there doesn’t seem to be any photographs of him. Evidently he doesn’t have a driver’s license and the information our Research Department turned up he has been very careful to keep completely away from cameras and photographers. Seems like he is well known in Argentina but no one really knows what he looks like. This is another part of his psychopathic nature, I guess.”
“Yes I know, but perhaps you can spot someone that seems to fit what we know about him, as little as that is. Anyway let me know what you find out when the auction is over.”
On their way back up to their hotel rooms, Miriam said, “Thank you for the good dinner conversation tonight, David. It was good to get better acquainted with you. I knew nothing about your family. The stories of survival from the Holocaust are so sad and at the same time very inspirational.”
As they entered Miriam’s room David replied, “I think it’s amazing that my family may have known your family since they could have sailed on the same ship to Australia in the thirties before the war really broke out. Not only that but then both of our families immigrated to Palestine and settled in towns only twenty three miles apart.”
“Small world isn’t it, David?”
Miriam walked over to David and gave him hug and a kiss on his cheek.
“Think we’d better call Levi and let him know what we’ve been up to?”
While David was in conversation with their boss for quite a while, Miriam first kicked off her shoes, took the rubber band from her ponytail and shook out her hair and lounged in the easy chair opposite David on the phone. She walked into the bathroom, shut the door and took a long hot bath. Wrapping her wet hair in one towel and herself in another she went back into her room and found that David had finished talking to Levi. David looked at her and whistled. “I’m sure glad you didn’t come back looking like that when I was talking to Levi or I would not have been able to concentrate on what he was telling me.”
Miriam smiled and responded, “Thanks again, I think. So what did you find out?”
“Not too much really, Malcolm and the guys he’s working with down in the Research ‘Think Tank’ believe that our killer had some sort of psychotic break in Argentina a few years ago and his warped mind decided finally to avenge his father’s 1960 death. This break changed a well-respected, wealthy business man to give up his rather plush life in Buenos Aires and come to Europe to do his dirty work. They also came up with much of the same story that we learned in the Munich library and think that it just may be that Hans is after the emerald because he thinks it is his rightful inheritance, in spite of the fact that his grandfather disinherited his father in the thirties, because he joined the Nazi Party.
“So we’ve got perhaps a psychopath out for revenge by killing Jews and hunting for his long lost inheritance in spite of being a multi-millionaire. And furthermore, Miss Wagner or Mrs. Cohen, or whatever your name is, would you please try a little harder to keep that towel closed around your beautiful legs?”
David got up from the desk, walked over and gave Miriam a kiss on the top of her head, unlocked the door to his room and disappeared. Miriam touched the top of her head, turned and watched David’s back disappear through the door between their rooms, and wondered if she should follow him.